Last year the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman, lamenting the political paralysis that was hindering the Obama administration’s legislative agenda, made this remarkable comparison: 'One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century.'

Last month on Meet the Press, Friedman warmed to his theme: “I have fantasized—don’t get me wrong—but that what if we could just be China for a day? I mean, just, just, just one day,” he said. “You know, I mean, where we could actually, you know, authorize the right solutions … on everything from the economy to environment.”

[In December], Wuhan City organized over 800 law enforcement officers to forcefully demolish nearly 40,000 square meters of illegal buildings that are near the Wuhan City to Huangshi City railway construction site. The phenomenon of local famers rushing to “grow houses” is very common.

Protesting the forceful demolition, a farmer woman was blocked out by hundreds Chengguan (city management) from her illegally built building.

...Experts pointed out that farmers “grow houses” are directly motivated by profits, however a deeper reason was because they fear for their lives after losing their land to the government project. In order to stop the root of the “growing houses” problem, the government should make efforts to find employment opportunities for the farmers and include them into the new city lives.

Well maybe that's just a fluke, because Thomas Friedman is oh-so-very knowledgeable about China's despots!

The case of Nail household is a common occurrence in China, however this incident is by far the most escalated conflict between residents and the government demolition team. Ms. Fan attempted to defend her house from the demolition squad by throwing home-made fire bombs…

Today, Ms. Fan’s house in Minghang district was to be forcefully demolished, Ms. Fan standing on the 3rd floor threw home-made fire bombs (at the demolition squad)... Upon seeing this news, I am pleased that after two decades of development, society has progressed. Sub-machine guns are replaced by high-pressured water gun. Then why would it lead to such brutal resistance? Because of the large-scaled building project of Hongqiao, Ms. Fan had an area 480 square meter home, but the government is only willing to offer the compensation of 670,000 yuan, which is 761 yuan per square meter of housing subsidies and 1,480 yuan for the compensation of the land.

When the city’s average commercial housing is measured by tens of thousands (per square meter), forced eviction’s price is still calculated with the hundreds, this is the reason why residents threw fire-bombs. That is, they were living in a 480 square meter home, you acquired their land for so called construction, that’s also business, your compensation for the family only is enough to buy a 40 square meters home, and then the demolitions team came. I think anyone who had weapons probably could not help themselves but to take them out in this situation.

“Ten thousand girls go to Lingnan (South of the Five Ridges – the area covering Guangdong and Guangxi), millions of whoremasters go down to Dongguan”, this is an up and coming popular phrase and also depicts an image of how prosperous Dongguan is...

Prosperity is people’s first impression of Dongguan – in the past 30 years, Dongguan’s economy was developing at an unbelievably fast pace... As famous as its prosperity is the city’s sex industry...

Dongguan’s Tourism Bureau released data from the first half of this year showed that the city had a total of 96 hotels of various stars. In the past year, the financial crisis ruined Dongguan’s export-oriented economy. However in Houjie, this famous town in Dongguan, even in the middle of the night, there are young girls who are dressed sexily on the street. They wear short skirts, black stockings, high heels, carry a small handbag and hold a cigarette in their hands. Their faces are covered with heavy make-up, and they do not seem to mind the chilly night.

There are over 100 chemical plants in Jiangsu province coastal industry district. (江苏滨海头罾沿海化工园区) Some of them discharge wastewater into the ocean; some heavily contaminated sewage is stored in 5 “Sewage Temporary Pools”. During the 2 high tides in every month, the sewage then gets discharged into the ocean with the tides. TFA!

Anhui Province Cihu Chemical Industry District (安徽省慈湖化工园区) built a underground pipe to discharge wastewater into the Yangtze River. The wastewater sometimes is black, gray, dark red, or yellow, wastewater from different chemical factories has different colors. TFA!

Shanxi Province is the most polluted areas of China. It is also the province with the highest rate of birth defects. This loving farmer couple adopted 17 disabled children. TFA!

15-year-old boy from Tianshui, Gansu Province (甘肃天水), dropped out of the school after 2nd grade, followed his parents to Heilonggui (黑龙贵) Industrial District. He earns 16 yuan a day. TFA!

Inner Mongolia province Heilonggui (黑龙贵) Industrial District, the couple who worked at the Plaster Kiln and just got home. TFA!

Villagers from Kang village in Linfen City, Shanxi Province (山西省临汾市下康村) due to long-term consumption of the polluted water contaminated by industrial waste, there were 50 people who have cancer and cerebral thrombosis. 64-year-old Wang Baosheng got ill since 2003, he has fester all over his body so he cannot go to bed and lying face down on the edge of the bed each day. TFA!

Zhaozhuang village by the Hong River in Wugang City, Henan province (洪河边的河南省西平县张于庄村), Gao Wanshun’s (高万顺) wife died of cancer. Now he lives in poverty. TFA!

In Shanxi Province there are a lot of charitable nursing homes, to help disabled infants abandoned by their parents. TFA!

The oldest is 9, not going to school. The youngest is less than 2 years old. They lived in severely polluted area. They hands and faces were always dirty. TFA!

Every year, a lot of deficiency babies in Shanxi Province were abandoned. Kong Zhenlan (孔贞兰) in Qi town (祁县) who was making a living by recycling trash adopted 25 abandoned children. TFA!

Xuanwei (宣威) in Yunnan province is a cancer village. Every year there are more than 20 people die of cancer. 11-year-old student Xu Li (徐丽) is suffering from bone cancer.

The world is flat? No, Thomas Friedman's world-view is seriously f-ed up.

USCG Admiral Thad Allen has spent a lot of time of late in front of the television cameras after the White House realized he made a much better face-man than, say, Janet Napolitano (oops -- did I say that out loud?).

Among the national issues identified back in the days of the evil Emperor Chimpy McBushitlerburton was this gem:

Put simply, this document summarizes the '2002 Spill of National Significance Exercise' in -- you guessed it -- the Gulf of Mexico.

A certain Vice Admiral by the name of, uhm, Thad Allen was in command of the entire region.

On page 3 of the document, a process to instantly waive The Jones Act was put in place.

The responsible party (steward) of the process is the United States Coast Guard (USCG).

MARAD (the United States Maritime Administration, responsible for naval defense readiness reserve) and Customs are also involved in vetting the waiver.

In short, Admiral Thad Allen should have instantly requested a waiver of the Jones Act, according to his own 2002 spill response exercise. In fact, the exercise that he helped spearhead identified it as a key -- key! -- issue.

Why isn't this a scandal?

And why is legacy media asleep at the wheel as we near day 73 of the worst maritime environmental disaster in American history? Could it be that President Not-Bush is in office?

Lately I have been reflecting on why the Obama Presidency is so long on academic credentials yet so short on accomplishments. It has to do with the difference between doers and thinkers. The president has surrounded himself with stars of academia and political strategists who have an agenda to push in the process of governing but little in the way of management experience. Note that I distinguish between managing and governing. A governor, as described in the mechanical sense, guides a system that is already operational but requires minor adjustments to function optimally. A manager modifies that system to a greater or lesser degree to achieve a goal.

President Obama is barely able to govern, let alone manage when the need arises. A manager would have set up new guidelines for say, a national oil policy, instead of simply badmouthing fossil fuels and browbeating the corporate world into product reformulations that re-labeled existing technologies as new or green. A manager would have immediately set up a consortium of interests who had tangible experience with oil drilling and the attendant problems associated with it and not filled a room with academics and called it 'expert.' And lastly, a competent manager would not have ignored the whole mess for two months and lied about creating a panel that hadn't met nor had the expertise to deal with such a protracted problem a mile under water.

Even a governor who was worth his salt would have caught on, albeit late in the game, that you have to bring together people with real experience to deal with a developing environmental crisis. It may close beaches in four states for years. It may put a hold on a fishing industry whose workers already live hand to mouth. That BP decided to pay out unlimited funds, and we know that that is what it will come to barring bankruptcy, is small comfort to those who labored by the sea they are now barred from even dipping a toe into. Why the president waited two months to take control and even now is barring equipment and manpower from aiding the cleanup effort is secondary to the result of such incompetence: his neglect has resulted in a monumental environmental catastrophe.

You may say that the President needed time to formulate a plan or cull information from experts to engage in such a large scale enterprise, but there is little evidence that he paid any attention to the situation at all. His experts are accomplished authors and may even have received a Nobel Prize (of which he never tires of reminding us), but they live in pristine, oil-free ivory towers. They could no more stop a leak a mile down in the sea than I could convince liberals that budgeting helps you bounce fewer checks. No matter: President Obama can take time out from his various sporting activities to proclaim the spill solved while simultaneously giving a shout out to his intellectual 'soul brothers' in the New Black Panthers or some such nonsense.

I used to think that we were experiencing a sort of Jimmy Carter Redux: an incompetent president who enjoyed cloying press coverage while shaming the country for its superpower status and pontificating on our need to lower expectations. No more. I now feel that the far left splinter group of the Democrat Party is in fleeting control of the levers of power and will die on their collective swords to accomplish a fraction of the socialist agenda they have been advocating for a century. You've got to give them kudos for staying true to an ideology. They truly believe that most people need a government to care for them and protect them from themselves - even though history tells us otherwise. But I digress.

All agendas aside, and that is a big aside because I believe this catastrophe could have been avoided, the White House governs like a blindfolded sufferer of Parkinson's Disease serving high tea. It tramples the spirit of the Constitution while happily proclaiming the benefits of its high-minded efforts to grant the same 'rights' to Americans enjoyed by the Europeans. Those rights include a legal requirement to pay 60%+ taxes, the right to be free of moral restrictions like the rule of law or the maintenance of borders, the right to stay home and be provided for by 'evil rich people' and the right to limit the free speech of anybody who disagrees with them through the implementation of various 'Fairness Doctrines.'

Who can bemoan the loss of a few thousand acres of shore-front property in the effort to save us from Global Warming through legislation that restricts the use of fossil fuels. After all, oil is poisoning the environment, whether in crude form or as an oxidized greenhouse gas. This mentality is exactly the same as banning guns because they kill people. Or banning SUVs because they burn too much fuel. Assuming the human race is unable to control its lusts is key to understanding the Democrats' tendency to over-legislate and -regulate.

But I fear in the case of the oil spill the White House is simply in over its head. Yes, an environmental disaster might make unconstitutional bans on drilling more palatable to a skeptical public. And yes the argument for alternate energy sources is buttressed by our inability to guarantee flawless drilling a mile or ten undersea. And yes, the environmental calamity fits well with that sex-crazed poodle Al Gore's scenario of fossil fuels destroying the planet, if only it were true...

There is no excuse for incompetency in the White House. That's why the press is so adamant about blaming an oil company and not the regulators who are charged with ensuring safe drilling practices. And all the better if you can blame a past president of the 'evil' party. But the claims of the press can no longer shield the Democrats' inattentiveness and often brutal arrogance from public view. The liberal apologists who mouth approval every minute and with every printed word no longer protect its favored party. Perhaps they still believe that incompetence can be ignored by the public so long as it serves their chosen agenda.

I could mention our porous borders hemorrhaging illegals while the scandalously incompetent Janet Napolitano declares them as secure as ever. Or the financial condition of our economy, with Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd insisting the housing market is sound after they effectively bankrupted the entire world through their criminal undersight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Janet Napalitano was incompetent before President Obama came along; he just put her in charge of homeland security, a grave mistake indeed. And as for Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd, they have systematically planned for the ruination of the housing industry for decades. Yes, for decades. Under the guise of forcing banks to write mortgages for minorities, Messrs. Frank And Dodd have undermined the financial underpinnings for the entire world. They knew this would happen: they didn't care.

So when you refer to Obama as incompetent, you might want to think of it as, 'incompetent as a fox.' For even thought there is no management experience in the White House, there are many academics and failed revolutionaries who want to see our country burn. And they have until November 2nd to achieve their goals. After that, they will melt back into academia and become consultants and lobbyists. Think Harry Reid is worried about what he'll be doing on November 3rd? He's already got a lobbying gig lined up. Nancy Pelosi will be re-elected by the most liberal district in the union, or simply return to the Republic of California to mismanage her winery and hotel.

Management experience speaks volumes about style, substance and ethics. If President Obama had ever served as a Governor he would not now be President. But, as the press did not cover his wildly socialist stint in academia or his populist votes while in office, I wonder if experience would have mattered in his case. Incompetent like a fox: now there's a phrase.

Quite some time ago, we embarked on a secret project to revamp the content of the Daily Kos website. We intended to -- and have succeeded beyond our wildest dreams -- in replacing The Onion as the thinking man's humor portal.

If you Google "hilarious political satire", we're definitely on the first page of results along with JibJab and the entire New York Times editorial board.

And next year we will release our first motion picture, modeled after the National Lampoon Vacation series of films. Look for Kos Goes to College and Learns to Write Good in theaters mid-third-and-a-half-quarter 2011.

Kos also noted that "Premium Banner" sponsorships of the movie are still available but are selling fast.

If you make under $250,000 a year and find yourself confronted with any of the taxes highlighted on the ATR site ("Tax on Indoor Tanning Services," "Medicine Cabinet Tax," "Special Needs Kids Tax," etc.) simply use these instructions:

Step 2: If challenged, pleasantly ask: "Are you calling President Obama a liar?"

“I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.”

--Candidate Barack Obama, Sept. 12, 2008

“If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime.”

--President Barack Obama, Feb. 24, 2009

“The statement didn’t come with caveats.”

--Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs, April 15, 2009, when asked if the pledge applies to healthcare

What's still unclear is how the tax hike exemption card would work after Democrats slap on their massive new VAT taxes? Of course, it may not matter, because they're guaranteed to supercharge the economy, especially after the Bush tax cuts expire*.

Hat tip: Amalaur.

* Thanks in part to the ludicrous John McCain -- of McCain-Feingold, Amnesty for Illegals, the Gang of 14, and numerous other affronts to the Constitution.

Top union leader Thomas Balanoff said he was at dinner the night before the November Presidential election when he got a call that was blocked... So he didn't take it.

Later he listened to his messages: "I walked outside, listened to it and it was from President Obama," Balanoff said.

"Tom, this is Barack, give me a call," the soon-to-be President-Elect said on the message... After Balanoff sent word through an Obama aide to call him back, Obama returned his call later that night.

"Tom, I want to talk to you with regard to the Senate seat," Obama told him... Balanoff said Obama said he had two criteria: someone who was good for the citizens of Illinois and could be elected in 2010.

Obama said he wasn't publicly coming out in support of anyone but he believed Valerie Jarrett would fit the bill.

"I would much prefer she (remain in the White House) but she does want to be Senator and she does meet those two criteria," Balanoff said Obama told him. "I said: 'thank you, I'm going to reach out to Gov. Blagojevich."

Balanoff then described a Nov. 6, 2008 meeting he had with Rod Blagojevich to recommend Valerie Jarrett for Barack Obama's Senate seat.

Curiously, most reporters appear to be ignoring the fact that Obama, on several occasions, denied having contact with Blago either directly or indirectly.

President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday afternoon that he has had no dealings with Governor Blagojevich over his replacement in the Senate...

"I had no contact with the governor or his office, and so I was not aware of what was happening," Mr. Obama said. "And as I said it is a sad day for Illinois. Beyond that I don't it's appropriate to comment."

In December 2008, Obama said he was "appalled and disappointed" by the revelations that the Illinois governor was involved in a "pay-to-play" scheme to fill his Senate seat.

"I have never spoken to the governor on this subject. I'm confident that no representatives of mine would have any part of any deals related to this seat," Obama, then the president-elect, said at the time.

But the union boss recalled things differently, testifying under oath that Obama was directly involved and, therefore, that he lied about his wheeling-and-dealing over potential Senate appointees.

Surely some pro journalists could figure out these discrepancies, what with their layers upon layers of fact-checking. Though with Journolost (sic) shut down, keeping all of the narratives straight -- between Newsweek, the New York Times, NBC, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod -- must be exceedingly difficult.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Pursuant to the Elena Kagan confirmation process, I would like to call your attention to a little-known fact related to the role of the minority party on the committee. That is, Rule IV of the Judiciary Committee states that "at least one member of the minority party must vote to end debate in committee."

For Elena Kagan to move to a vote in the Senate, at least one Republican on your committee must accede to end debate. I suggest you hold firm and refuse to end debate.

This Democrat-controlled Congress and this Democrat President have declared war on the American people. Against the clear wishes of the people:

• they have passed a multi-trillion dollar bonanza of federal spending aimed at saving government, not private sector jobs, thereby rewarding their union supporters at the expense of subsequent generations;

• they have rammed through, without a single Republican vote, a brand new entitlement program -- socialized medicine -- when the country can least afford its existing entitlements;

• they are attempting to use unaccountable bureaucracies like the EPA to levy crushing new energy taxes, which will allow an unelected, fourth branch of government to completely control industrial policy;

• they aim to jam through thousands of pages of financial regulation that not a single representative has read, the effects of which cannot be predicted, and that doesn't address the root cause of the economic meltdown: the government-sponsored entities Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac;

This egregious band of career, Leftist politicians have made a mockery of representative government because, even as the American people prepare to boot them out of office in November, they plot to defy the will of the people.

In a set of moves unprecedented in American history, Democrats intend to use the lame-duck session combined with budget reconciliation to do what the American people have rejected. They intend to pass their radical agenda despite what 75-80% of the American people want. They intend to flip off the citizenry, bypass the filibuster and violate their oaths to uphold the Constitution.

This band of Statists has declared war on the GOP and the American people.

It's time to stop playing patsy and refuse to vote Kagan or any other non-originalist nominee out of commitee.

Stonewall everything.

They've Pearl Harbored the American people enough. It's time for our Midway.

The commission also recommended an expansion of Illinois's sales tax base to include services.

Why not breathing, too? Eh, forget it -- I guess they're doing that with carbon taxes.

Quinn called on the commission to develop specific recommendations aimed at ensuring long-term health and prosperity for Illinois.

"Long-term health and prosperity!" Doesn't that sound like a Soviet slogan from the fifties?

The report included a detailed analysis of the Illinois tax code and said the current structure is antiquated and unfair, and raises inadequate revenues for state services.

Note that the converse is never true: state services are never -- never -- too costly compared to revenues!

The commission recommended several modifications to the state's income tax structure, including a two percentage point increase to both the personal and corporate rates. The change would generate another $6 billion annually. The commission further suggested that the personal income tax be imposed on retirement earnings, collecting $1.6 billion into state coffers.

Gee, that should be popular.

"I appreciate the hard work of the Economic Recovery Commission," [Gov.] Quinn said. "Its insights will help us work together to build on our existing assets and position our state for strong, lasting recovery as we move out of this historic recession."

I'm betting that retirees and businesses will now flock -- flock! -- to Illinois knowing that Democrats have returned the state to fiscal health.

(Just between you and me, I don't care how much Illinois raises in increased revenues. It will never be enough to pay for their out-of-control Democrat masters and their union bosses. I'll repeat: it will never be enough. Don't tell anyone I said that, though.)

Paging Mr. Alter... Mr. Alter... It's time for you to unleash your dogs of demagoguery...

Another member of the military's top brass has roundly criticized the President and the Democrat-controlled Congress; in this case, pointing to their catastrophic levels of deficit spending. Little-publicized were last week's comments by Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, at a breakfast hosted by The Hill newspaper.

Adm. Mike Mullen... renewed his warning that the nation’s debt is the biggest threat to U.S. national security.

“I was shown the figures the other day by the comptroller of the Pentagon that said that the interest on our debt is $571 billion in 2012,” Mullen said at a breakfast hosted by The Hill. “That is, noticeably, about the size of the defense budget. It is not sustainable.”

Even under the rosy projections of the Obama White House, which thus far have proven to be worse than if you'd used a dartboard, the deficit is dangerously high.

The Obama/Democrat budget doesn't contemplate closing the deficit for as far as the eye can see.

Despite the utter failure of every spending program they've tried -- starting with the $860 billion "Stimulus" package -- the Democrats continue to shovel the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars into their cash furnace.

Worse still, they are creating deficits that endanger the ability of the country to survive: not simply from a national security perspective, but from the standpoint of risking a total economic collapse.

What happens when our interest costs become unsustainable? Barack Obama and his left wing sycophants in Congress will be long gone, having left their legacy of misery and destruction to our heirs.

Perhaps the laughingstock of a "journalist" -- Newsweek's Jonathan Alter -- can co-author another hit piece with David Axelrod similar to the one that took out General McChrystal.

Odds are Alter can get Mullen fired for the same offense -- for telling the truth.